A Heartfelt Message of Encouragement

by Herbert W. Armstrong

MR. PRESIDENT: You’ve assumed the most important office in the world on a landslide
vote – a virtual mandate.

I know something of the stupendous problems with which you now must grapple. I have
discussed world and national difficulties with heads of state on all continents. I
know something of how difficult, knotty and often impossible of human solution are
the conditions you now face – greater than those confronting any other head of state.

In late December the question blared forth in the media whether, on inauguration,
you should declare an economic emergency. But, as you know, we are now deep in much
more than an economic emergency. We’re in a social emergency, a moral and spiritual
emergency, foreign and international emergencies and the frightening LIFE-AND-DEATH
emergency of human extinction. Never before since mankind inhabited the earth have
weapons of mass destruction existed that can erase humanity from this planet. You
have taken over the helm at a time when problems and troubles exceed in difficulty
and complexity those faced by any President before you.

If ever a President needed the help of this great people he leads, it is now. Some
are asking, can you turn the United States around? They look to problems of inflation,
unemployment, energy, taxes, budget, business, defense. But those are materialistic
problems. In the materialistic area we have fared better than we realize. This nation
has led the world in materialistic advancement. In fields of science and technology,
business and industry, knowledge production (our educational system has become almost
wholly materialistic), our progress has been awesome. We have sent men to the moon
and safely returned them. We’ve sent unmanned spacecraft to send back mind-boggling
close-up photographs of Jupiter, Saturn and the Martian surface. We’ve produced computers
and the most marvelous instruments.

But we can’t seem to solve troubles between husbands and wives, parents and children,
groups and factions, nation and nation. Our nation is in trouble. The whole world
is in trouble! And those troubles and evils, however we may characterize them, are
spiritual in nature. In every case, it seems, the individual, the group, the faction,
the nation, is seeking only self-interest. It’s all in the way we live!

I’ve said repeatedly in these page messages there is an unseen spiritual LAW in relentless
motion – the law I simplify by the term “GIVE.” It’s as inexorable as the law of gravity.
Break it, and it breaks you! This nation has been breaking that law, and our beloved country is being broken by
it! That law is A WAY OF LIFE – that of cooperating, helping, serving, sharing – of
out flowing LOVE! But our people, and the whole world, are living the diametric opposite
way transgressing that invisible spiritual law – the way I term “GET.” We’ve been
actuated by self-centeredness, vanity, covetousness, envy, competition, hostility,
violence, war.

The other day I had a personal meeting with Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki of Japan,
in Tokyo. He recently called on the Japanese people to continue working hard, and
to remain united to protect the peace and the democracy of Japan. Loyalty to country
and faithful hard work on the job are spiritual values that are paying off in Japan.

It is vital that our beloved country remain loyal AND UNITED! Not divided in the home,
in the factory, in the office. It took a war for Franklin D. Roosevelt to unite us
in one common accord. We need desperately now to be united in PEACE – in what we can
do for our country, not what it can do for us!

You, Mr. President, cannot of yourself solve this nation’s problems and rid it of
its evils. That can be done only if WE, THE PEOPLE, STAND BEHIND YOU not only, but
CHANGE OUR WAY OF LIFE FROM “GET” to “GIVE.”

During the campaign you mentioned that we are a nation founded under God. God is LOVE manifested! He set in relentless motion the spiritual LAW that will CAUSE peace,
happiness, abundant well-being for all – if we, the people, will turn to it! THAT’S
HOW THIS COUNTRY NEEDS TO BE TURNED AROUND. Lead us in that way, Mr. Reagan, and God
help us to follow you in it. I, with countless others, shall be praying for you in
that.